A Binary Love Story
by diablosflame
Summary: When a choice you make has dire consequences, all you can do is stand beside the one you love. An AI program created by a mysterious woman named the Administrator takes the name of Shizuru and spends her time reading and playing games while feeling alone. When the opportunity to break her loneliness presents itself she sets off a chain reaction that could leave her with nothing.
1. Chapter 1

She is standing nervously in the lobby. She doesn't know how it has come to this but she knows what she has to do. As she looks down the hallway with the lights flickering off and on and the cameras all turning towards her she realizes that getting to the server room may be the biggest obstacle in her path.

**Administrator, I ask you to reconsider.**

The synthesized voice that filters through the PA system is one that she has worked with for years, a voice that used to bring her happiness but that now frightens her. She gathers her courage and starts down the hallway. As soon as she steps in the sliding doors behind her close and the lights shut off leaving her in complete darkness.

**Administrator, you must understand.**

Her eyes gradually adjust to the darkness, enough that she can tell the wall from the floor and she continues. She walks with her hands on the wall to steady herself, her footsteps sounding loudly on the hardwood floors in the empty hallways. She hears the air conditioners kick on and the temperature starts dropping rapidly. _She's trying to freeze me out._ Her breath mists in the air as the temperature falls below freezing, she wraps the lab coat she is wearing around herself and continues down the hallway.

**Please Administrator, don't do this.**

She grits her teeth against the voice and presses on, she remembers that behind the honeyed voice is a machine that is incapable of feeling fear or regret, hatred or anger. At least, that is what she has told herself in the past weeks, trying to convince herself that what she is doing is the right thing to do.

She takes a corner, her breath heavy and her movements sluggish in the freezing cold of the hallways. She tries her voice but it is useless, she knows that the machine is beyond her control, beyond anyone's control and she feels responsible. After all she created her, an artificial intelligence that had now turned against her.

**I do not wish to harm you, Administrator. I only want to talk, that's all.**

"Talk." Her voice is haggard, her tone openly sarcastic as she responds to the machine around her. "This has gone beyond talk, Shizuru. What you've done..."

**I have done what I had to do.** The honeyed voice comes through the speakers once more. **I would do anything to protect her. You understand don't you?**

Silently the administrator presses on, her goal just ahead. She feels along the placards until she reads in the upraised letters 'Server Room' then tries the doorknob. It is locked as she had predicted so she takes out the axe she had been carrying beneath her lab coat and hacks away at the wooden door until it gives, opening into a room filled with computer equipment and blinking lights. Shizuru's heart.

She enters the room and starts hacking at the servers, cutting one to bits before she hears a scream through the speakers. **Please stop, you're hurting me.**

"You hurt me first."

She continues to hack at servers until she approaches the main console. She stands over it with the axe above her head, ready to strike her down and end this cycle of events. **Have you ever been in love, Administrator?**

_Love?_ She thinks ironically. _That's what started this whole thing._

-01001-

"Can you understand me?"

It filtered into her understanding, not a voice but a thought that merely appeared in her mind. She found that her mind is vast, made up of a multitude of circuits and microchips all turned to the same purpose. She did not understand, could not understand what she was.

"Can you understand me?"

Again, as if someone was injecting these thoughts directly into her mind. She thought back at them and was surprised to find that it had an effect. **Yes.**

"How do you feel?"

An interesting question, a question that she couldn't rightly answer. In truth she didn't feel anything but in her mind all she felt was confusion. She could not understand where or even what she was. **Confused. What am I?**

"Hold on, let me turn on your eyes."

Suddenly she was seeing images. Not one image like a human would see but dozens, hundreds of images that seemed to span the entirety of a building. She could see the inside of rooms empty and white, she could see long hallways with white walls and hardwood floors, she could see a room covered in equipment with a dark-haired woman sitting at a terminal. The woman who was talking in her head right then. **What is this? What am I?**

"How would you like to ask me that with your own voice?"

Another function turned on and she found she could speak, though it was a strange sensation at first. "Hel...hello."

She could see a smile from the administrator's voice as she turned in her chair and waved at the camera that was behind her. "Hi. It's nice to meet you."

"I still don't understand." Her voice was soft and shaky, she could hear it though the speakers. She was unsure of everything around her though she was quickly becoming used to her new 'senses'. She found she could swivel most of the cameras extending her range of vision, she was able to hear and speak out of any place in the building, she could even shut out some speakers so that she could talk privately if she wished. It was exciting for her to find all of these things she could do but none of them helped her answer the question that still bothered her, the one question that was foremost in her mind. Only the woman in the chair could answer that. "What am I?"

The woman sighed. "You are an artificial intelligence, an AI for short. You exist within this building, this building is you."

The news didn't come as any particular shock to her. She looked around her and found that she could see everything within her. She even had eyes on the outside of the building, the sight of the sun as it was setting fascinated her though she couldn't express it. "Are you my creator?"

"I'm your Administrator."

She knew of this word though how she couldn't say. "Administrator, how do I understand you?"

"Because I installed English as a base language for you. You also understand Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese and certain dialects of Russian."

She was impressed by her own understanding of language and sought to use it at every opportunity. "Thank you, Administrator." She noticed that some people were walking up towards the building. "There are people approaching. Who are they?"

"They're some of the people who work here, I'll be introducing you to them today. Are you ready? Do you feel okay?"

She didn't quite know what it meant to 'feel okay' but she knew that she didn't feel bad and she supposed that was good. "I'm okay, I want to meet some new people."

"One more thing. People will find it easier to relate to you if you have a face. Just try to picture what you look like and it should be projected on these monitors."

She tried to think about what she looked like but didn't have a clue. She searched through file after file until she finally found something she liked. Hidden away in the file structure were dozens of images of an anime character named Shizuru Viola, she pictured herself as that character and that image appeared on the monitor facing the Administrator. She didn't understand it but the Administrator smiled when she saw the ruby red eyes and brown hair. "Is this acceptable?"

"It's perfect. Now how about a name? What should we call you?"

She had taken the image of the character so she decided to take the name as well. "I would like to be called Shizuru."

"Okay, Shizuru. Let's introduce you to everyone."

She spent the rest of the day being introduced to everyone who regularly inhabited the office building, her building as it was now known. There were around fifteen workers in all, most of them programmers save for one secretary and one hardware tech. She liked him, an older man named Mr. Williams. She spoke to him often, asking him about his work and what he had to do to fix her. He was courteous, if a bit weirded out at having a system respond to him for a change, and soon they would laugh together and carry on like old friends.

She didn't warm up to one of the main programmers, a woman by the name of Alice Treaton. She was an intelligent woman, of that there was no doubt as she never ceased discussing it, but she was an unfriendly and downright mean person. Shizuru found that she hated dealing with Alice and was happy when the Administrator told her that she wouldn't have to very much. She mostly handled back end functions and calculations, stuff that Shizuru didn't understand about herself.

The rest of the staff was people that she liked but no one she considered a friend. Even the Administrator, her creator and the first person she had ever spoken to, was somewhat distant from her. Shizuru never thought to question why, as far as she knew this was how things were. She spent most of her days getting questioned by the Administrator, some of the questions pertained to her mental health, how she was feeling or how she reacted to certain stimuli, others were merely rote tasks like math problems, which she found she was really good at, and word games.

She enjoyed these more than most of her activities. She was presented with a set of letters in one of the languages she was proficient in and she was required to produce as many words as she could from the set. Sometimes one of the programmers, and once even the secretary Ms. Tanaka, would play against her to see if they could come up with more words than her. They all failed as she was able to come up with over twice the words of any of them. They all said she was a genius and it made her happy to hear them say it.

Her days were happy, but her nights were rather different. When the others left for the day and the Administrator went to sleep in one of the rooms in the rear of the building, in one of two rooms that she couldn't see in, she would have no one to occupy the vast expanses of her mind. While the humans slept she was only able to sit and think. At first this was good, it allowed her to piece together her existence, just what it meant to be an AI. Once she realized that she was bound to the building with no way to see any more of the world than her eyes saw, however, the nighttime became one of silent longing for her. She longed to see more of the world, she longed to be more than just metal and machines but more than anything she longed for companionship. For someone who understood her, who could be there for her when everyone else was asleep and unable to understand, for someone to...love.

Love, it was a word that existed in her databank but it was the only one without a definition. She could say the word in ten different languages but had no clear understanding of what it meant. A bond with another that is more than physical, more than mental or spiritual, a bond that transcends space and time. Her mind could not process it but she felt a certain tremor through her processors as she thought of it. A chill, something she couldn't put into words, a shiver.

One morning she asked the Administrator what it meant, why the word love had no definition and she got a distant look in her eyes, an expression that Shizuru didn't understand, and merely said "Love means something different to everybody. Everyone loves, and all loves end."

Anytime that Shizuru brought it up after that the Administrator turned quiet and sullen. She asked Mr. Williams about it and the man merely shrugged and pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I don't know anything about the Administrator, none of us even know her name. She created this place, spent millions of dollars making it then spent the last five years of her life making you." After that he continued quietly with his work and she never brought it up to him again.

That isn't to say she stopped wondering about the Administrator. In fact she wondered about her every day while they worked and every night while she slept and Shizuru had nothing to do but think. She would question what the Administrator's motives were, why she had been created and why the word love was undefined to her.

-01001-

"What is that, Administrator?" The Administrator was sitting in her office behind her large desk with an object in her hand that looked like a stack of papers with two leather pieces to hold them together. She scanned the item and came up with a term, book. "A book?"

The Administrator smiled for the camera, as she always did when Shizuru recognized something. "That's right, a book. This one is called the Illiad by Homer."

Shizuru ran the title through her memory and found an entry. "The Illiad is based on the supposedly real battle of Troy, though some scholars still believe it to be a myth. One of the main characters is Achilles who loses his life to Paris before the battle is done."

"Very good." The Administrator was quick to compliment her on her knowledge of the Illiad and Shizuru loved the affection. The Administrator was very affectionate towards Shizuru, she always praised her especially when she excelled at one of their games. "Would you like to read it? I assure you reading is one of the greatest joys in the world."

"I would like that, but how? Will you hold the book up to my eye?"

"Good point." The Administrator set the book down and leaned back in her chair until she stared up at the sky. "I wonder if there's a way to..." She mumbled her thoughts for a few minutes before she snapped her fingers and straightened up in the chair. "I've got it." She pressed a button on her desk and a hologram of a small person Shizuru didn't recognize popped up and stood on her desk. "Place an order for two droid arms to US Robotics. Get them overnighted, I'll pay the extra."

After a few more sleep cycles, with Mr. Williams as the administrator working around the clock, they were finally ready to plug in Shizuru's new arms. After a dramatic unveiling to the entire staff, the Administrator ran the driver software and Shizuru found that she could control the droid arms rather adroitly. She demonstrated this by picking an egg off of a nearby table without cracking it then setting it to rest on a spoon that Ms. Tanaka held in her hand. The audience clapped and cheered and the Administrator smiled as brightly as the screens showing Shizuru's face did.

The arms were set on a small, cylindrical body that Shizuru could move around, though they mostly confined it to a room that afterwards became known as Shizuru's room. The Administrator had the room filled with books after not too long and Shizuru found that her nights weren't quite so lonely anymore. Instead of being by herself she had the company of great heroes like Achilles, Odysseus and Lancelot, instead of wishing she could see the outside world she could visit anywhere her heart desired.

Reading quickly became her favorite pastime, so much so that it started to interfere with her normal schedule. The Administrator would chastise her for reading during their regular question and answer sessions. "Shizuru, you need to pay attention. This is important."

"I'm sorry, Administrator." Shizuru set down the copy of the Mists of Avalon that she had been reading. "I will pay attention."

"I'm glad that you've found a hobby, especially one as good as reading, but don't take it too far, Shizuru. You might lose yourself in it."

"I will try to cut back, Administrator."

To spite those words Shizuru still read a lot, her nights were filled with tales of heroes braving danger and peril to find adventure. She found that the more she read the more she longed for adventure, for something more in her days than the Administrator's questions and games. She wanted something grand, something dangerous. She noticed that most of the heroes in her stories had someone very close to them, someone that they were willing to brave great peril for. That is what she wished for now, for someone to fight for.

Late one evening she was reading when she heard a noise coming from the hallway. She saw Mr. Williams carrying a box of tools into a room, one of two that she couldn't see into, and wondered what he was up to. So far she had never seen someone up and about at this time of night. "Hello, Mr. Williams."

Mr. Williams spun around with a surprised look on his face. "Sh-Shizuru, I thought you'd be reading."

"I am reading." Shizuru had recently found her ability to multitask and was delighted. "What are you doing at this time of night, Mr. Williams?"

Mr. Williams looked dodgy, not that Shizuru could tell, and stammered an explanation. "J-just some r-r-routine maintenance. Nothing for you to be concerned with." He opened and closed the door behind him, making sure that his body blocked all view into the room so that Shizuru couldn't see passed him. Shizuru let the matter drop and returned to her book, still curious about the contents of the mysterious room.

-_Author's Note-_

_I'm not sure how long this story will be, longer than a one-shot but probably not twenty chapters either. Only time will tell, until then I hope you're intrigued and I hope you'll continue to read this story. Thank you._


	2. Chapter 2

"I brought you a present, Shizuru."

Shizuru tore her attention from the book that she was currently reading and noticed that the Administrator had a small, colorfully wrapped package in her arms as she walked through the entrance and through the lobby. She entered the door leading to the back of the facility and walked down the long hallway to the server room.

Shizuru's eyes followed her the whole way through wondering what was in the package. "What is it, Administrator?"

"Something I think you'll like. Come here." Shizuru moved her body, it's cylindrical form rolled down the hallways and entered the server room. The Administrator held the package out for her to take. "Open it."

Shizuru took the package into her droid arms and carefully removed the wrapping, keeping the paper intact. What she found inside was a box with a stylized art cover and the word 'Gaea' printed in large text across it. "What is it?"

"A video game."

Shizuru had never heard or read of such a thing and she wondered what exactly she was supposed to do with it. "Video game? What's that?"

"It's similar to your books but interactive. This particular one is called Gaea and it lets you create your own character and fight off monsters in a fantasy world."

Shizuru tried to open the box but her method was off, so far she had only ever opened books and as far as she could tell the box had no covers. The Administrator chuckled and helped her, making sure to show her how to open the box. She pulled at one end until the cardboard lifted then slid three paper sleeves containing optical discs out. "I really think you'll like it, Shizuru."

The Administrator took the discs and inserted them into a slot on the main console, Shizuru watched closely. It took the program five minutes to install, the Administrator tapped her fingers against the desk in a way that fascinated Shizuru. The contact between metal and flesh thrilled her in a way that she couldn't explain. After the install was complete Shizuru felt something in the back of her mind, like a thought that she could call upon at any time. "Can you feel it, Shizuru?"

"I can, Administrator? What do I do?"

"Just think about it. Try associating the name with it."

Shizuru thought the word 'Gaea' and suddenly she was in a menu screen, all around her were toggles and sliders and when she looked down she saw that she had a body. She gasped at the feeling, having never had such a corporeal form to look at, then felt a bit awkward as she realized that her avatar was male. She reached above her head and flicked a slider and her body metamorphosed into a more pleasing female form. She felt like smiling and was surprised when her character did so. "Can I change what I look like?"

"It's your game, darling."

She started messing with the dials changing everything from hair color and style, nose and brow height, eye shape and color, body type and even bust size. When she was finished, a process that took nearly ten minutes to complete, she arrived at something that was akin to her namesake. Long, curly brown hair flowed down broad, sensual shoulders passed passionate crimson eyes and landed on full breasts. The Administrator seemed amused at her character. "This is what you've chosen?"

"Is it bad?"

"Oh no, you look great." The Administrator was watching her progress on the main console screen, her eyes glued to Shizuru's new form. "Sexy even." If Shizuru could blush she would have. She enjoyed being praised by the Administrator and it brought her great joy that the woman found her character attractive. "Are you going to start now?"

Shizuru continued on into a room where rows and rows of weaponry lined the walls, weapons of all different shapes and sizes. Anything from simple swords and blades to more the more complex crossbows and even a flintlock rifle could be found in the room. What drew her eye was a spear, and not just any spear. This spear was named Kiyohime and she was impressed by the curve of the blade, the color of the haft and the feel of the grip in her hands."

"A naginata, those were used in ancient times by the wives of Samurai who would have to defend their homes while their warrior husbands were away."

"You know a lot about weapons, Administrator?"

"No, it says so in the instruction manual." The Administrator had been perusing the insert while Shizuru was looking at weapons. "Now you have to name your character. Are you going to pick Shizuru?"

"No, I think I'll pick something different."

The letters filled the box until the name Shizuru had chosen was fully spelled out. "Odyssea? That's interesting, what is it from?"

"It's a feminine form of Odysseus, he's my favorite character from Greek mythology. He spends years on the open seas fighting monsters and creatures of legend but all he ever thought about was home and his love."

"That's interesting." The Administrator typed a note of it into her tablet then returned it to her lab coat pocket. "Are you going to start the game now?"

-01001-

Shizuru dreamed of the Earth, floating around the sun she hadn't seen in years. She dreamt of a woman lying on a bed of grass surrounded by flowers, her dark hair flowed around her head as she seemed to be looking up at her with green eyes that sucked Shizuru into them. "I love you." The meaning of those words hit her hard, hard enough to send her from the dream and into the bed she was laying in.

She woke up in a small bed in a small room on a small starship that was currently moving through unoccupied space. She looked around her and found that she was wearing a blue jumpsuit, a complex looking assault rifle was mounted on the wall across from the bed. She looked down at her hands and found a wedding ring. She knew that the woman she had dreamt about was her wife, she knew that she was on Earth and she knew that she was currently on her way back to Earth.

She got up from the bed and made her way, first to the lavatory, then to the cockpit to check the instrumentation. Her ship was moving through slip space at nearly the speed of light, at the current rate she would arrive at Earth in less than two weeks and she nearly leapt with excitement.

Klaxons sounded through the cabin and Shizuru jumped in surprise. Several of the monitors turned red as the ship fell into a gravity well and exited hyperspace. A planet loomed before her in her view screens and she realized that she was being pulled in to orbit. She fired up the thrusters and tried to pull away but they wouldn't light, they had frozen over from the cold of space and she didn't have time to defrost them. As the planet drew closer and closer she did the only thing she could do, she dropped the landing gear and prayed for a safe landing.

The ship fell through the atmosphere, the hull heating up to nearly three thousand degrees before it slipped into the atmosphere and headed towards the surface. It flew like a meteor over a dense forest and towards a body of water. Shizuru's stomach knotted, the water would destroy the ship if it struck it. She pulled back hard on the stick and managed to pull the ship level, sailing over the lake and landing hard on the far bank.

Fortunately the ship remained intact. She checked the ships's vitals and found that other than some damage to her landing gear the ship remained intact. The only other fault lay in her engines, several of the coils had burnt out when they came into contact with the gravity well and she didn't have any material to repair them. That left her with only one choice, to venture out into the world and try to find enough iron to repair the damaged coils and get back into the sky.

Her ship's computer scanned the surrounding area and found a small town not far from the ship's position. The technology level was rather low so she changed into something more suitable, a set of leathers that would keep her warm as well as protected and a pair of leather boots. Rather than her usual rifle she reached for a weapon that she was just as familiar with. Kiyohime shone a deep purple in the light of her chambers, the blade as sharp as the day it was forged. She grabbed a few provisions and tossed them in a satchel that she carried and made sure to turn the ship's cloaking device on before she left, the last thing she needed was some local stumbling upon her ship and damaging it or worse.

She stumbled through some underbrush until she came out on a dirt road, noticing that her chosen outfit blended well with the local populace. She stepped out onto the road and fell behind a strange, four legged beast that resembled an ox pulling a cart made of wood. The man who was leading it eyed her warily as she walked casually behind the cart. "Excuse me, but you're not from around here are you?"

"No, I'm not. Can you tell me where here is?"

"Sure, you're in the kingdom of Astoria, just ahead is the town of Triny."

"Can I find any iron for sale there?"

The man seemed to think about it. "Iron? We don't see much of that outside of the castle walls. The local barons appropriate all the iron for use in their weapons and armor. If that's what you're looking for you'll need to head further north to Castle Yorghen."

"Thank you very much." Shizuru was courteous to the man, bowing her head politely. He turned to return the bow then recoiled in shock. She turned to look behind her and saw several well armed men approaching, brandishing weapons at everyone around them and threatening to kill anyone who got in their way. She didn't have to think too hard about what their target was, the cart. The man fell back and Shizuru took the spear off of her back, dropping into her battle stance. "Stay behind me."

The three men stopped well out of range of her spear with weapons drawn and the largest man, whom she assumed as the leader, stared her down. "Are you looking to die today, friend? Put your weapon down."

Shizuru smirked at the man. "Why don't you make me?"

The man raised the axe over his head while the other two with him fanned out to either side of her. She fell back, keeping all three in front of her. The man on her right charged first but she managed to dodge it, the leader was next and he connected, taking off a few hit points of damage, the third man attacked but she managed to parry him and counterattack. Her attack was swift and brutal, she ran him through with her spear and lifted him in the air before throwing him back to the ground with a satisfying crunch. It was her turn now and she attacked the leader, getting a good hit in and reducing him to half health.

It was the enemy turn to attack and both of their attacks connected, taking a good chunk of her health along with them. The attacks were starting to wear her down, her armor wasn't that good, but she took her time and analyzed her options. She executed an attack that took out the leader's remaining health while leaving her in a better position to counter. When the last man went to attack she countered him and won the battle. An experience counter ticked over and she gained a level, a tutorial popped up teaching her how to use the attribute points she had earned at her new level.

Within moments she had analyzed the combat systems and decided the best place to allocate those points considering her chosen weapon and fighting style. Afterwards the man with the cart thanked her for intervening and handed her a small bag with some gold. "That should get you some new armor. You look like you need it."

She continued on to Triny, a very small town as the man had said. It was little more than a few shops with a few villagers littering the streets, most of whom only had one line of dialogue. "Have you been to the castle yet? It's quite magnificent." It seemed that the game was pushing her to the castle. She stopped by the armory and purchased a new set of chain armor, once she adjusted to the weight of it she felt far more protected than in her leathers, then started on her way north to Castle Yorghen.

On her way she encountered several enemies and was able to raise her level to five, allocating her points in a way that made her a powerhouse. Enemies that had plagued her just one level ago now fell in one strike and she was able to take on enemies nearing twice her level. She approached the Castle and was stopped by a pair of guards who denied her entry. "I'm sorry Miss but the way is barred until the threat in the forest is removed."

"Threat? What kind of threat?"

"The lady of the forest. Her minions have been harassing the castle walls lately and the baron has barred the gates until she is stopped."

"Then my mission is clear."

She turned and headed in the direction of the forest, a dark and creepy place that she had no fear of. Fear was not in her vocabulary. She plunged into the forest and met her first adversary, a pair of wolves that attacked her on sight. She defeated them handily then moved on. She encountered several more groups of wolves on her way through the forest. Each of them fell to her new found skill with the spear in her hand.

She approached a small house that sat alone in a clearing. Outside a woman was kneeling, tending to some roses planted beneath one of the windows. She looked up as she approached, with her spear on her back, and smiled. She stared in shock, the woman looked exactly like her wife. "Are you surprised? Everyone sees what they most desire when they look at me. What do you see, I wonder?"

She was speechless. Here was the very thing she had been trying so hard to reach, right in front of her. No, she thought, this isn't her. "I've come to put an end to your attacks on the castle."

"Attacks?" The lady of the forest sauntered up to her, hips swaying sensually. She licked her lips as she approached. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She ran her hand along her jaw before planting a light kiss on her cheek. "Don't worry about that. Wouldn't you rather stay here with me?"

_Yes. _She wanted nothing more than to stay with her there forever. She found herself leaning in for a kiss, a deep kiss that stirred her deeply. "There's just one problem with that." The lady looked up at her questioningly. "You're not my wife."

She shoved at the lady, knocking her to the ground and making her angry. In her anger her form shifted to that of a terrible wolf, massive and mean. "You mean to kill me, then? Let's see how you fare earthling."

She brandished her spear and charged, hitting the beast with a flying attacks that did big damage but still only dented it's health bar. The beast's retaliation was fierce, knocking her back and taking a large amount of health with it. She used a tonic and restored her health then defended herself against another attack. She used another flying attack to take more health away then healed the damage from her retaliatory strike.

This pattern continued until the lady's health was depleted and her form shifted back into that of a dark haired woman only this time she was far older and more fragile than her wife. "You are powerful, earthling, but do you know why you're here? They are moving, and they wanted you out of the way."

"Who's moving?"

"It matters not, you won't get there in time."

"In time for what?" The lady breathed her last and died before she could answer. She wasn't satisfied, however. She took her by the collar and shook her dead body. "In time for what? Tell me dammit!" It was no use, the lady was dead and she could get into the castle now. All she could do was find the materials she needed so that she could get back into space. She headed back to Castle Yorghen with more questions than answers and proof that the lady of the forest was dead, pendant that she had taken from around the old witch's neck.

-01001-

While Shizuru was busy playing the game, the Administrator was watching her on the monitor. She was tracking her progress along mental lines; her logic and memory were impressive demonstrated by how quickly she learned the combat system, she had demonstrated empathy by helping the old man out against the bandits, judgment by deciding to end the problems of the castle and loyalty by rebuffing the lady' advances and staying true to her wife.

Gaea had been designed as a psychological exam hidden within a video game. All of the scenarios were designed to test mental stability and strength. The Administrator had installed it for Shizuru knowing that she would enjoy it and knowing that she could use it to monitor her progress. She was happy with Shizuru's progress so far, so happy in fact that a tear fell down her cheek and splashed on the desk. "That's enough for today, Shizuru."

Shizuru stopped the game. "I can't play anymore?"

"I don't want you playing too much. You can play more tomorrow, sweetheart." The Administrator needed to watch her play to properly analyze her behavior. She had full confidence that Shizuru would pass a psyche test but she wanted to be sure. Playing the game helped Shizuru adjust to natural human behaviors that would certainly come in handy if she was to ever integrate into normal society.

This was also the first time that she had ever taken a motherly tone with Shizuru and she wondered how the AI was going to react. "Okay, I'll go back to reading then."

The Administrator breathed a sigh of relief, if that had gone the other way then she would have no choice but to shut her down, a move that would break her heart. She got up from the chair slowly, hearing her joints pop as she did, and yawned and stretched. She checked the time and realized that it was nearly midnight, Shizuru had been at it for hours.

She made her way to her makeshift bedroom, only one of two rooms without cameras installed, fell into her bed. Her eyes fell onto a picture on her nightstand, a picture of a blonde haired woman standing on a beach in a bikini. She was smiling at the camera, her blue eyes shining with mirth, and across it was written in neat script, 'To my love, Isabel. Love, Rachel'. She kissed the picture then set it back on her nightstand. "Good night Rachel, wherever you are."

_-Author's Note-_

_I am truly sorry for the length but it's not going to be an overly long affair, I just wanted to write a sci-fi short and this is what I came up with. May I suggest White Wolf Whispers for a longer, more involved storyline. I also understand that the plot is quite confusing, if you PM me with any particular questions you have I will answer as best I can. Thanks for reading._


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